1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for sound and image production with video game programming instruction and content formatted media including digital audio data on compact discs (“CDs”) and the like for recording and reproducing interactive information. More particularly, the invention relates to interactive game programming for playback responsive to user inputs.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various types of CDs exist for recording and reproducing applications including those where one or more types of data are recorded for reproduction. Some commercially available CD types include a compact disc digital audio (“CD-DA”), a compact disc read only memory (“CD-ROM”), compact disc interactive (“CD-I”), and a video CD or a digital versatile disk (“DVD”). The CD-DA is known for use as a storage medium for audio that is converted into digital code by sampling the sound waves at 44.1 kHz and converting samples into a 16-bit number. In addition, a blank or recordable compact disk may be referred to as a “CD-R.” In some applications a CD-ROM format is used to store text, graphics, and audio information. The CD-ROM storage format is different from that of a CD-DA and a CD-DA player cannot play CD-ROMs. In applications where full-motion is recorded, a video CD format may be used for recording VHS-quality video and CD-quality audio. Video CD movies are compressed using the MPEG-1 method and require a motion picture experts group (“MPEG”) decoder for playback. The CD-I format is used to store data, audio, still video, or animated graphics. CD-Is include an operating system standard and methods for compressing the data such that video images may be displayed. A CD-I requires a CD-I player for reproduction of stored information and cannot be played on, for example, a CD-DA player.
With the above-noted compact disc technology in existence, systems have been developed for recording and reproducing audio and video information. One video signal recording system described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,227,213 to Isobe for a “Video Signal Recording System” issued on Oct. 7, 1980, relates to recording a stationary image signal and an audio signal on a common video disc. In this system, video frames representing stationary images are recorded such that frame, or image, starting points are located on a common radial line of the video disc. The audio signal associated with the stationary image is time compressed and recorded in equal sized portions at predetermined intervals, and in-between portions of the video frame. In this manner, a frame for a stationary image and the associated audio signal is recorded in approximately two video frames worth of video disc space. The reproduction of the audio and video data is thus provided by audio expansion and video delay circuitry.
In other systems, a CD-I may be used as a medium for recording video, text, program, and audio information. These systems typically include a reproducing device that operates interactively with the user for playing back the stored information. However, these systems are often uneconomical for use as entertainment devices for children due to excessive hardware costs for accessing and processing the interactive program data and compressed video information on the CD-I. In addition, CD-I discs will not play in a CD-DA player. A system described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,445,878 to Kato et al. for a “Disc Recorded With Audio, Image, And Operation Image Data From Which Sound And Images Can Be Reproduced And Apparatus For Reproducing Sound And Images From Such Disc” issued on Sep. 3, 2002, relates to a CD-I disc having recorded sound and image information along with program and operation image data. The disclosed reproducing apparatus reproduces information stored on a CD-I, a CD-I/CD-DA, and a CD-DA. The CD-I/CD-DA disc includes CD-I tracks mixed with CD-DA tracks. The data format used for recording the sound and image information along with program and operation image data includes mixed “form 1” and “form 2” data structures corresponding to “mode 1” and “mode 2” formats of a CD-ROM. The “form 1” and “form 2” formats for the CD-I also employ video compression and a sub-header having blocks on which recorded sound, picture, and data are time-division-multiplexed. The sub-header is composed of the file number, channel number, sub-mode, and data type. The audio information is written in the CD-I as either 16-bit pulse code modulated (“PCM”) data sampled at 44.1 kHz, 8-bit or 4-bit adaptive differential pulse code modulation (“ADPCM”) sampled at 37.8 kHz, or 4-bit ADPCM sampled at 18.9 kHz. The video data is compressed from 8-bit data to 4-bit data for recording and then expanded back to 8-bit data during reproduction. A central processing unit (“CPU”) controls the CD-I system and, along with components including a system controller, master controller, and CD-ROM producing circuit, audio, video, and operation image data is processed and presented to the user according to program data stored on the CD-I or CD-I-CD-DA. Further, a CD-RTOS (real time operating system) handles files stored in a read only memory (“ROM”) provided as part of the system.
Another system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,331 to Ota for an “Optical Disc Reproducing Apparatus Having Selectable Processing Speeds” issued on Apr. 18, 1995, relates to an optical disc reproducing apparatus for CD-I in which information such video information, computer data, application programs are recorded in addition to audio information. The apparatus includes voice signal processing for decoding ADPCM audio data and picture signal processing with two channels of video signal processing circuits for picture superposition and switching. A controller includes a microcomputer (“MCPU”), a master controller for decoding addresses from the MCPU and controlling direct memory accessing (“DMA”), and a CD-RTOS stored in ROM. In addition, the system includes a small computer system interface (SCSI) for exchanging data or commands with, for example, a host computer via data input/output terminal, a crystal oscillator for supplying a clock signal to the MCPU. A frequency divider divides the clock signal from the crystal oscillator and a changeover switch selects one of multiple clock signals with different frequencies and supplies the selected clock signal to the MCPU, which allows a user to varying the program execution speed. Other systems are known, including those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,706 to Kono for a “Compact Portable Audio-Display Electronic Apparatus With Interactive Inquirable And Inquisitorial Interfacing” issued on Jun. 22, 1999, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,914,707 to Kono for a “Compact Portable Audio/Display Electronic Apparatus With Interactive Inquirable And Inquisitorial Interfacing” issued on Jun. 22, 1999. These above-noted patents disclose an apparatus where audio and video information is recorded for reproduction on a portable device. However, these systems are employed to provide interfacing with video data stored as CD-I or CD-ROM formatted data and not with video data formatted for storage on CD-DA. In addition, DVDs and players, such as those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,169,847 and 6,347,040 both to Mizoguchi et al. for a “Portable DVD Player” respectively issued on Jan. 2, 2001 and Apr. 16, 2002 disclose a DVD players employed for high capacity media recording and reproduction using multi-layer disc and MPEG compression technology. MPEG compression is a lossy compression method in which some of the original image is lost, using intraframe coding for individual frames, but also used interframe coding, which further compresses the video data by encoding only the differences between periodic key frames (known as I-frames). The disclosed players include a displaying and outputting mechanism mixing and displaying the main image decoded by an MPEG decoder and a sub image decoded by a sub-picture decoder. A voice outputting mechanism outputs voice regenerated by an audio decoder. Moreover, the players include a communications interface, PC card interface, and a universal serial bus (“USB”) interface to encrypt data for output. Although such players may be used to reproduce audio and video information, the multi-layer disc recording and processing technology employed in DVD applications is fundamentally different from that used in CD-DA recorders and players.
Other systems that disclose features providing video disc program branching or other controls that interface with TV displays and like, include U.S. Pat. No. 4,695,953 to Blair et al. for “TV animation interactively controlled by the viewer” issued Sep. 22, 1987 which discloses animated actions of the user that switches the display to make the picture respond interactively for continuous action in a scene. The '953 patent discloses motion picture branching providing an animation method which enables rapid and repeated switching of multiple tracks of different camera-originated animation of the same character during continuous action in a scene, and enables branching at the termination of an action to multiple actions or scenes. This method is the basis of a double-circuit video system that enables a player to repeatedly touch or hit an animated character during a continuous action as displayed on a projection screen or television monitor and thus change the action repeatedly. A random number device may select one of the sixty to a hundred episodes of animation—in the preferred embodiment—and a rewind to the selected episode is affected. Thus the system of multiple scenes interactively switched by the action of the user and multiple episodes that may be determined by random choice, user action, or user choice creates such a complexity of graphic pattern and dramatic odds that the uncertainties of reality are simulated although the animation is pre-photographed, prerecorded, and programmed. Operation is described using film, video tape, video disc, or digital stored and/or generated animation. This enables branching at the termination of an action to multiple actions or scenes. It is likewise known to use DVD chapters which may contain information such as scripts, i.e., instructions readable and executable by a conventional DVD player. The DVD chapters may contain audio or video information which may play linearly or in any order or combination using scripts on the DVD to implement a series of instructions based on game variables and user-provided input to enable game play and scoring, etc. The use of variables and scripting within chapters described above may represent approach for certain DVD games. Further methods for playing an interactive DVD game include memory storage of the DVD player configured to accept input from an external input source and/or the user-operated control. Then defining a game variable, formatting the memory storage to hold a value associated with the game variable and changing the game variable as a function of the input accepted to select and play audiovisual content as a function of the value associated with the game variable and input accepted from an external input source or the user-operated control, which necessarily requires specific game scripting directed to using the player environment with data storage and handling capabilities.
While the above-noted systems are known, they are insufficient for use as economical and simple entertainment devices capable of “DVD style gaming”. Compact discs having the same mechanical size as an ordinary compact disc for music (CD-DA) are disclosed for reproducing PCM audio from a CD-DA information, but only for music entertainment and not for video reproduction. Moreover, known systems do not record and reproduce interleaved bit map video and PCM audio information onto or from a CD-DA. Accordingly, there exists a need for a simple and efficient system that records audio and bit-map video information on a CD-DA and reproduces the information using a portable reproducing device.